The Rise of Cultural Marxism | Jordan Peterson — Transcript

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1. 0:00so imagine imagine it's it's Russia
2. 0:03you're in a village it's 30 years
3. 0:05something like that after the Surfs have
4. 0:07been emancipated there's a few
5. 0:09agriculturalists who've managed to
6. 0:12produce successful agricultural
7. 0:13Enterprises and you know maybe they have
8. 0:15a couple of cows they have some land
9. 0:16they're able to hire a few people and
10. 0:18they're raising almost all the food
11. 0:20right and so and they're a minority in
12. 0:23any Village because the hyperproductive
13. 0:25successful are always a minority so
14. 0:28they're a minority in every village all
15. 0:30right and so and and there's people who
16. 0:31are doing worse and then there's a lot
17. 0:34of people who aren't doing so well at
18. 0:35all and then the Communist intellectuals
19. 0:37show up and they tell the people who
20. 0:39aren't doing so well some of whom are
21. 0:41just suffering because of life but some
22. 0:43of whom aren't doing well because
23. 0:45they've never done anything productive
24. 0:47with even a second of their life and the
25. 0:49Communist intellectuals come in and say
26. 0:51you know those guys that are doing so
27. 0:52much better than you yeah they actually
28. 0:55stole all of that from you and you're
29. 0:58morally obligated to go take it back
30. 1:01it's like oh man you know after after
31. 1:04six cups of mead let's say or let's say
32. 1:0710 or let's say 20 and I'm drunk out of
33. 1:09my mind and I've got my cruel buddies
34. 1:11with me and we're all resentful right to
35. 1:13the core because we've wasted our
36. 1:15miserable lives and now we have an
37. 1:16opportunity to go like down the street
38. 1:19to our wealthy neighbor's house and to
39. 1:21rape his daughters and we can do it in
40. 1:22the name of good it's like well there is
41. 1:24a story you can mark it and that
42. 1:26happened everywhere in the Soviet Union
43. 1:28and so they wiped out the Kola it's like
44. 1:30great and then 6 million ukrainians
45. 1:32starve to death right brilliant I'm a
46. 1:34farmer brilliant the Ukraine was the
47. 1:36Bread Basket of Europe that's what it
48. 1:38was then it became a region pathetically
49. 1:41unable to feed
50. 1:43itself and yet the same sort of world
51. 1:47view that gave rise to that when now
52. 1:49being told you use the word Neo Marxist
53. 1:52uh many people in Australia use the word
54. 1:54cultural Marxist I've got an old friend
55. 1:57who said to me uh what are you talking
56. 1:59about John you know free capitalist
57. 2:01Australia is not going to let that
58. 2:02happen here
59. 2:04mhh well Quantas Airlines took a nice
60. 2:07step towards that the other day and they
61. 2:09adopted their language policing policies
62. 2:11these corporate these corporations who
63. 2:13should know far better let these
64. 2:15far-left fifth columns into their
65. 2:17organizations they think they're not
66. 2:19going to pay for that they think they're
67. 2:20going to stop with some demands for the
68. 2:22re reconstruction of language not like
69. 2:24the demands for reconstruction of
70. 2:26language by the way are trivial they're
71. 2:28maybe the most important thing you could
72. 2:30possibly Demand right I want to reshape
73. 2:32the way you speak I want to reshape the
74. 2:34way you think it's like well that's okay
75. 2:36as long as it doesn't interfere with the
76. 2:37bottom line it's like it'll interfere
77. 2:39with the bottom line you let that fifth
78. 2:41column in it's a warning to corporate
79. 2:43people you let that fifth column in man
80. 2:45you're going to regret it you're going
81. 2:47to regret it so and things can turn on a
82. 2:50dime you know a very well organized
83. 2:53minority even if the majority opposes
84. 2:55them and and they do a very well
85. 2:57organized minority can have an
86. 2:58unbelievably pernicious effect on a on a
87. 3:01organization Margaret mes made that
88. 3:03point society change direction when a
89. 3:06small group of people decide to change
90. 3:07its direction that that's the way
91. 3:08history works well that's what happened
92. 3:10in the universities let's come back um
93. 3:14this issue of the redefining of language
94. 3:16it seems to me that there are two things
95. 3:18that people who want to reshape Society
96. 3:20in brutal
97. 3:21ways uh do the first is they start to
98. 3:24silence good
99. 3:26debate either silence it or shut it down
100. 3:28or whatever thing they do is they
101. 3:30redefine language so it's very hard to
102. 3:32have a debate so
103. 3:35diversity actually I mean there's no
104. 3:37other way to put it in this country it's
105. 3:39rapidly coming to mean a stifling
106. 3:41Conformity you dare not deviate from the
107. 3:44line uh and you see it with a whole lot
108. 3:46of other words that are bandied around
109. 3:49equality being one of them yeah because
110. 3:52it's confused equality of opportunity is
111. 3:53confused with equality of outcome well
112. 3:55the initial wedge was equality of
113. 3:57opportunity and then that flew and and
114. 4:00so well no no it's equality of outcome
115. 4:02that's equity and that's I cannot
116. 4:04believe how rapidly that idea which is
117. 4:07the ultimate and terrible ideas I can't
118. 4:09believe how rapidly that's spread and
119. 4:11how little people criticize it well
120. 4:14that's because it to uninformed analysis
121. 4:18it sounds good if you're feeling
122. 4:20carelessly compassionate because you go
123. 4:22back to the Ukrainian example in
124. 4:24destroying the Leading Edge Farmers you
125. 4:27actually guaranteed misery for everyone
126. 4:29oh un un unbel people were selling human
127. 4:33body parts in the Ukraine for food you
128. 4:35know it was if you were a mother and
129. 4:38your children were starving and you went
130. 4:40out into the fields after they were
131. 4:42harvested and you picked up individual
132. 4:44pieces of grain that the Harvesters had
133. 4:47left and you didn't turn them over to
134. 4:48the state that was a capital offense
135. 4:51right that's that was and the funny
136. 4:55thing is that that was in The Glory Days
137. 4:56of the Russian Revolution right that
138. 4:58wasn't in the like 1950 s that wasn't in
139. 5:00the 1930s even that was in the 1920s
140. 5:02that was right when this started and I
141. 5:05think it was I think it was Malcolm mugg
142. 5:07who was reporting on that for for a UK
143. 5:10newspaper whose Name Escapes me at the
144. 5:11moment he was pointing all of this out
145. 5:13you know and no one paid attention to no
146. 5:15one paid attention towards the end of
147. 5:16his life he warned that the West is in
148. 5:18danger of eating itself out from within
149. 5:20and I wonder whether in fact he wasn't
150. 5:22being very preent and you and I want to
151. 5:24stop that happening for the sake of our
152. 5:25young people much else for the sake of
153. 5:28everyone went down that pathway already
154. 5:30like we don't need to do it again tried
155. 5:32it and things history should be like
156. 5:35science in the sense that it ought to be
157. 5:37objective it ought to be told truthfully
158. 5:39it ought not to be
159. 5:41used to
160. 5:43secure some dominant group's preferred
161. 5:48version of society well this is also why
162. 5:51see what I've been trying to do about
163. 5:52this because I thought this through a
164. 5:53long time ago I thought well I don't
165. 5:56want to I think the group identity game
166. 5:58ends in blood doesn't matter who plays
167. 6:01it left Wingers play it blood right-
168. 6:03Wingers play it blood and lots of it not
169. 6:06just a little bit you can't play the
170. 6:08identity politics game Al so what do you
171. 6:10do instead you you live the
172. 6:14mythologically heroic life as an
173. 6:16individual that's the right place to
174. 6:18work and that's the message of the West
175. 6:20as far as I'm concerned is that we
176. 6:22figured that out we figured out that the
177. 6:23collective identity was not the Pinnacle
178. 6:26statement that the individual not that
179. 6:28Collective ident have no value obviously
180. 6:31family has value and and and and your
181. 6:33organizations have value all of that
182. 6:35that's not the issue the issue is what's
183. 6:38the Paramount value what's the metric by
184. 6:40which people should be measured and the
185. 6:42answer is they should be measured as
186. 6:44individuals as if they have a Divine
187. 6:46Soul they should be measured in that
188. 6:48manner but it can't be a selfish thing
189. 6:50that is to say if I recognize I have
190. 6:52worth and dignity I'm obliged to
191. 6:54recognize it so to you I think you can't
192. 6:57recognize that you have intrinsic worth
193. 6:59in dignity without also doing without
194. 7:01also recognizing it others and and vice
195. 7:04versa I don't think that I can recognize
196. 7:06the worth of another person without
197. 7:08without stumbling onto the idea that I
198. 7:10also have to recognize that for myself
199. 7:12when then you think well everyone would
200. 7:14want that but well people don't because
201. 7:16you're also charged with the
202. 7:18responsibility of your own care as if
203. 7:21you matter well that's a big
204. 7:22responsibility like it's a lot easier to
205. 7:25assume that everything is pointless I
206. 7:28mean that's painful in all that but well
207. 7:30you don't bear any responsibility and no
208. 7:32one lives that way no no well not not
209. 7:34for
210. 7:35[Music]
211. 7:40long